Former Walt Disney World Executive VP of Operations Lee Cockerell weighs in on DeSantis' retaliation against Disney

May 02, 2023 in "The Walt Disney Company"

Posted: Tuesday May 2, 2023 6:52pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Yahoo Finance has shared an interesting interview with former Walt Disney World Executive VP of Operations Lee Cockerell.

Lee spent almost a decade running the operational side of Walt Disney World, and shares his thoughts on the Florida Governor's continued retaliation against Disney.

Much like other observers, he sees no upside to the state of Florida and concludes that the Governor's actions are purely retaliatory for DIsney's opposition to the DeSantis agenda.

Watch the full 6-minute interview below with Lee Cockerell below.

Discuss on the Forums

Get Walt Disney World News Delivered to Your Inbox

TiggerDad4 days ago

And there are lots of people who don’t use all of their vacation days each year. Many jobs let you save them, many people can’t afford to do anything fun so why bother, and many people just don’t go because they don’t want to be seen as lazy. My problem is I don’t have anyone to do my job for me if I’m not there, so the work just piles up.

josiah mazelin5 days ago

I said basically. You just listed two rides at each park. My point is proven

Goofyernmost5 days ago

With the kind of promotion that they once were famous for were to be used, they can get all the hype they need and spend a hell of a lot less to do it. They have to make what they have be exciting and not worry about what others might be doing. They stayed on top for about 60 years doing that and then, I assume to give bigger bonuses to the executives, they stopped producing those things and even if they don't admit it, they are running scared at the moment, in spite of increased profits. They have to make that dominance last, but I don't see them doing that unless they fill up those empty buildings and put something good in them and promote, promote, promote. That is second only to location, location, location.

Sirwalterraleigh6 days ago

Galactic spirit Halloween was sorta in that ballpark

Sirwalterraleigh6 days ago

Nah…they’ve crossed the Rubicon on “attracting middle class families”. They’re well past that price point to make any such endeavor turn out to be anything but a “loss” to the stock wonks. That strategy was their philosophy for many years…expansion to create more traffic and sell more product across all business was Eisner 101 - essentially, but they dumped that 15-20 year ago. Limiting investment and all but eliminating expansion to cap overhead and then attempting to make more revenue/profit off what was already paid for. That strategy is incompatible with “expanding/pricing to make it more accessible”

JoeCamel6 days ago

It's non-sensical too, increase your costs to get less money per guest and do huge capital outlays? Bob sez nyet

Tha Realest6 days ago

There’s no evidence 1) this is happening, or 2) they intend to do this.

ChrisFL6 days ago

They had a 5th gate and they closed it..................DisneyQuest :p

Advisable Joseph6 days ago

Disney needs land to expand. Pulling guests from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot (or otherwise unceasing attraction supply for the guests), then lowering prices to increase volume (and income) and accessing middle-class families, while building out the other parks, is the idea. Would you consider a Magic Kingdom Colony across the Lagoon or part of the current parking lot, which guests could access with Magic Kingdom tickets, a "5th gate"? How about parking, so the park can expand into the old parking lot?

gwhb756 days ago

Agree with this. The only unfortunate thing is that "expanding existing parks" doesn't get the same hype as "a whole new park". Now if we could only have a true expansion of existing parks (i.e. just add new things (like villains land) and not take things away first (like tropical americas in AK)).

JoeCamel6 days ago

I think a lot of the salivating over a new park is fatigue with the same offerings year after year or a dribble of something new. Stale has a stench. Fans have "done" everything in the parks time after time so they want new and "damn the cost it's what I want". Does not have to be logical or make sense it is a want and I need my wants fulfilled ipso facto TDO is going to build me a new park. Seems to point to someone who has never run a business nor cares if that business thrives to feed the stockholders

monothingie6 days ago

Forget the tremendous capital expense to build a new park. The most important thing to Disney is YOY growth. The quarterly earnings mean EVERYTHING to Bob and Wall Street. Key amongst that is that Disney cares tremendously about operational costs and maximizing LL revenue streams. While a new park may be tremendously popular, it also increases operational expenses significantly. It is also very likely that it will cannibalize a large portion of the existing guest base. LL brings in a tremendous amount of revenue for Disney. It works best for Disney with full parks, adding a new park will dilute LL revenue at the existing parks. If a new park was going to justify the build cost and not affect the OI for WDW, then shovels would have been in the ground already. They've done the analysis, and a new park is not financially viable at this point.

lazyboy97o6 days ago

Planning permission and building permission are two separate things. You need planning approval first. Comprehensive Plans (along with Master Plans, Future Land Use Plans and Zoning Plans) are also not set in stone and quite malleable.

Dranth6 days ago

I disagree with him on a number of things, but he isn't wrong on this one. They have underbuilt parks that can absorb a LOT more people if they expand them. Those parks have existing infrastructure which makes it easier and cheaper to develop and build out vs. an entire new park. They understand their main audience has limited vacation time and already know people are unlikely to extend their vacations but instead sacrifice one thing they would have done for something else. They have a strained employee pool that has never recovered from 2020 and staffing new builds in existing parks is WORLDS easier than trying to staff an entire new park. Even an entire parks worth of attractions built over the four current parks would require less staffing than the same number of attractions in a brand-new park once you factor in employees for back of house, support, utilities, security, transportation, etc. Sure, nothing is impossible, and I'll gladly admit to being wrong on this if it does happen, but it would be business malpractice to do so in Florida anytime soon. I would expect most of the other locations around the world with room to get a new gate before Florida.